A NEW luxury travel report confirms yet again that this is market where specialised travel agents are needed.
While High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) are becoming modest about displays of wealth, travel is “still a place for unabashedly individualistic and hedonistic experiences” and it is also “a place where around two-thirds of all luxury travellers still rely on specialist advisors and travel agents to make their high-end trips a reality”, said Carolyn Childs, co-founder of MyTravelResearch.com and author of the report, Luxury Travel and the Visitor Economy: Key Insights and Trends, during a press conference yesterday at the Luxperience trade show in Sydney.
But she warned would-be entrants into the sector: “When servicing luxury clients, there are no days off and no off days.”
She added: “Luxury travel is a high reward, high investment sector. Suppliers need to invest in service, design, quality and uniqueness at all times.”
Quoting a Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, she said the Asia-Pacific region now has the fastest accumulation of new HNWIs in the world, growing at around 10 per cent per year. America and Asia-Pacific have approximately five million HNWIs each, and Europe around 4.5 million.
Childs said that since the global financial crisis in 2008 there has been a new emphasis on privacy and less ostentatious displays of wealth.
The luxury market is now defined by nine key trends:
- Less dominance of the 40-60 year old age group, especially in emerging markets such as China and India
- A new focus on experiential travel
- More mindfulness and wellbeing
- More events-oriented (eg, solar eclipses or music festivals)
- A new commitment to learning and enrichment
- The rise of responsible travel
- A new focus on family life in travel
- Traditions re-imagined, making ‘old’ products attractive to younger luxury travellers, especially those from China and India
- The growth of river and ocean cruising and private yachting
